


This Love, Like Dead Leaves, Is Withering

by silversoul_snow



Series: 30 Days Of JJ Project (and GOT7) [8]
Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Companion Piece, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Getting Together, How Do I Tag, M/M, Misunderstandings, Romance, i need tagging lessons, it's not that angsty i promise, student president!jinyoung, transfer student!jaebum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 12:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7222660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silversoul_snow/pseuds/silversoul_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow though, they ended up from being enemies to lovers. It wasn’t a memory that Jaebum really enjoyed revisiting, but it was one that he never regretted nonetheless.</p><p>It was like the perfect storybook romance.</p><p>AKA The entire journey of falling in love with Park Jinyoung and its respective consequences through Jaebum's eyes.</p><p>Companion fic to If I Could, I Would Pull It Up And Rewind</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Love, Like Dead Leaves, Is Withering

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Separation
> 
> Title stolen from Dead Leaves by BTS
> 
> Companion fic to If I Could, I Would Pull It Up And Rewind

**This Love, Like Dead Leaves, Is Withering**

 

Jaebum had always believed the world to be fair. An idealistic point of view, he knew that. But to him, things always happened for a reason. That line of thought had served him for the past 17 years of his life.

Until he met Park Jinyoung.

They met in high school. Jaebum was the new transfer kid with the cold look that scared everyone away. Jinyoung was the student president who had been placed in charge of showing him around.

His transfer had been the news of the entire school. A student from the city transferring into a small town was rare. A student from the city transferring into a small town in the last year of high school was unheard of.

Jaebum blamed his dad. That guy always had a wanderlust and somehow found a job that accommodated his needs. He was fine with his dad traveling around the world for a few months, coming back for a few weeks and then leaving again.

He knew his mom wasn’t though.

He had seen her cry herself to sleep, smiling watery grins at the pictures that his dad sent them when she thought her son wasn’t looking.

That had been the only reason why Jaebum grudgingly followed his parents to a small apartment in Jinhae. His mother’s happiness was important to him. Their apartment was alarmingly small as compared to the big modern kind that Jaebum had grown up in.

It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing though.

It was quite a refreshing change from what he was used to. It was more homely. Their previous house had been too big for the two of them. That was particularly the reason why Jaebum always came home late, after his mother finished work for the day. The new neighborhood was small, which allowed for intimacy. Jaebum wasn’t used to walking down the streets and having old ladies and young kids alike greet him.

But it was something that he could get used to.

Unlike his old school, which had state-of-the-art facilities, the high school in Jinhae didn’t even have a dance studio. That posed a problem until Jaebum found one not far from his new home. It wasn’t as big or as furnished as the one back in Seoul, but he was happy with having a space to dance without having to be careful of anything. In other words, he could B-boy to his heart’s content.

On his first day at school, he was alone when he arrived. Despite his parents wanting to accompany him there, knowing how big a sacrifice their son was making for them, they had to settle legal things with the lawyer regarding their apartment. Not that Jaebum was complaining or anything. He wanted some time to prepare himself before having to try and fit into a completely new environment.

For some reason, the minute he was introduced to the student president, he instantly disliked him. It was the president’s duty to show the new kids around the school. Not like they had any others other than him. The last one was a few years ago.

What started as a mutual dislike quickly turned into a rivalry. It wasn’t even an obvious one. More of the cold shoulder when passing by each other in the shoulders, or just subtly trying to trip each other up here and there. Pretty soon, the entire school had gotten wind of the animosity between the new student and the president. Rumors started flying around.

They were utterly ridiculous.

Some were about how Jinyoung was secretly the leader of a gang in Jinhae and Jaebum was the leader of a rival gang in Seoul. Others were about Jinyoung had stolen Jaebum’s girlfriend and Jaebum was tracking him down for revenge.

Jaebum’s favorite was how Jinyoung and he were ex-lovers who had an ugly misunderstanding between them that caused a gigantic fight and how they actually still in love with each other.

Because that was just completely insane and impossible.

 

In hindsight, maybe that wasn’t as amusing as he found it to be.

 

Somehow though, they ended up from being enemies to lovers. It wasn’t a memory that Jaebum enjoyed revisiting, but it was one that he never regretted nonetheless.

It consisted a night at a party with alcohol and drunken kissing and confessions and awkward avoidances the day after. And a scheming Bambam. You get the idea.

Just like before, news that the once infamous rivals had ended up being a couple quickly was passed around the school. They were the perfect couple in school, according to their fan club.

The campus couple.

Since Jaebum was notorious for not being a fan of public display of affections, pictures of them looking at each other would sell for tens of dollars. A picture of them holding hands would be hundreds. A picture of them hugging would be probably thousands, maybe.

Of them kissing?

The fanbase would sell their souls to see that.

It might be illegal for such things to be going on in school, but since there wasn’t really much harm done (other than fangirls going home with empty wallets), the school management turned a blind eye.

It was like Jaebum had gone to sleep and became a celebrity overnight. While he didn’t mind the many girls with flashing cameras following him around and their high-pitched screams whenever Jinyoung and he were in the same vicinity, it soon became tiring for him. He just wanted to be able to look at Jinyoung and hold his hand without much fanfare. Or any at all.

What the fangirls didn’t know was that Jinyoung was an _avid_ fan of PDA. When they were on a date out of school and safely away from fangirls, it was his own personal mission to make Jaebum blush as many times as he could. Jaebum was ashamed to say that if they had been taking score, Jinyoung would have won.

It was like the perfect storybook romance.

 

Everything was well with their lives. Their social circles were slowly becoming one. Or rather, the student council, which was basically Jinyoung’s only social circle, adopted Jaebum since his only friend in the entire school had been Youngjae. Jackson, who was Jinyoung’s vice president, immediately latched onto him. He had initially thought the younger to be rather masculine and strong, but instead, he was like a puppy. A Wang puppy. Youngjae, who Jaebum had dragged along to the council’s first lunch that he had been invited to, fitted in well with Yugyeom and Bambam who were the council’s treasurer and secretary respectively.

Somehow, they had lasted through all the examination stress and university application and got into the same university in Seoul. Despite what everyone else thought. It wasn’t uncommon for couples to break up, especially during the examination period.

Jaebum felt that that was a major accomplishment in their relationship.

Even in university, they were still the campus couple despite being only in the first year. Everyone knew of the high school couple that came in together and somehow stayed in a relationship through all the hardships of university application and then university itself.

They were inseparable.

 

Instead of choosing to live in the dorms, they decided to rent an apartment near the campus, making sure that it was somewhat equidistant between the Music block and the Medicine block. The idea of having a place to call theirs excited Jaebum.

It had taken a while for everything to get settled down before they slipped back into their normal routine. After all, both of them did just up and migrate half way across the country and into a whole new environment. Well, not exactly for Jaebum since he had lived in Seoul before.

A week before lessons began, Jaebum had dragged Jinyoung around Seoul, exploring the city and its secrets hand in hand. It was slightly exhilarating to escape the intimacy of their neighborhood and bask in the anonymity of the fast-paced city.

They could kiss without anyone calling out their names or proceeding to make small talk with them. They could hold hands without hearing screams and shouts. They could go on a proper date like any other couple. Don’t get Jaebum wrong. Over the months, he had come to love Jinyoung’s neighborhood. But it was nice having a little anonymity once in a while.

 

Jaebum had thought that they would last long.

After all, they did survive the terror that was university applications, one of the biggest hurdles that the couple had ever faced in Jaebum’s opinion. Sure he hadn’t thought of the idea of marriage with Jinyoung, but he certainly wasn’t opposed to it. In fact, he could see that happening.

He would love to get married to Jinyoung.

Of course, he would be the one proposing. (His pride wouldn’t allow it otherwise.)

 

But things never stayed the same for long.

 

As both Jaebum and Jinyoung began to take part in the many activities that university offered, they found less time to spend with each other. They tried their best to keep in touch though. Mondays to Fridays were the busiest, but they always made sure to clear their schedule when weekends came around.

Saturdays was date-day, or also known as the day-where-we-go-on-a-date-but-also-available-if-any-last-minute-things-came-up. Like when one of the older dancers had sprained his ankle the day before a major competition and Jaebum was called in as a reserve dancer. They won naturally, of course. Or when Jinyoung’s lab partner lost all their data for a term paper and they had to redo all the experiments in one night. Sunday nights were the cuddle nights when they stay in and simply enjoy each other’s presence.

They got by fine until the third year, when Jinyoung had to start going for internships and term papers became more and more intense. Their Saturday nights together were soon taken up by nights spent in the lab or in the recording studio. But that was alright because they had Sunday nights to spend with each other.

Until Jaebum started waking on Monday mornings to a cold bed.

 

He would come up to a silent apartment and have meals for one, always ending up throwing away the food that he had prepared for Jinyoung into the fridge or the bin. There were times when he wouldn’t even get to see Jinyoung for days. Many times he had picked up the phone to message his boyfriend but Jaebum knew that these days, Jinyoung was running on only adrenaline, caffeine and 3 hours of sleep. What if he called when his boyfriend finally managed to take a nap and rest his mind but got woken up because of Jaebum’s call? And so, the number of unsent messages in his draft box started increasing. And when they did get together for a meal, Jinyoung would always be talking about that new transfer student from America.

What was his name again?

Ah, that’s right. _Mark_.

It didn’t escape Jaebum’s attention that maybe Jinyoung did have a thing for transfer students.

 

It was only one day that Jaebum had picked up his phone to ask Jinyoung what he wanted for dinner, he realized that he no longer knew how to start a conversation with the other. The boy who was supposed to be his boyfriend. That was when he came to a heartbreaking conclusion.

Somehow, they drifted apart.

Maybe he should have seen it coming after all. Jaebum always knew that in the relationship, he loved Jinyoung more than the other loved him. It wasn’t either of their faults though. Jaebum had always been a little too generous with his heart. Jinyoung had always been the more protective one, even though it might seem like the other way round.

He had thought that that little issue would be no problem. After all, they did love each other.

Right?

Apparently not.

He knew that their relationship was falling apart. But he had no idea how to fix it. He didn’t even know whether Jinyoung wanted it to be fixed.

And so he just left it like that.

 

Looking back, maybe that was a really dumb thing to do. He should have just done something. Anything. Maybe then, there might have been just the slightest chance that they could have salvaged their relationship.

 

It was almost midnight one day when he finally got back to the apartment. The National Dance Competition was two days away and this time, his dance crew was determined to win the championship. They had come so close to winning last year. And they would get it this time. The downside was that their dance practices often end up finishing late at night.

As Jaebum trudged up the stairs leading to their block, he managed to grin at their security guard tiredly, not getting the look that the male was giving him. Dismissing it, he entered the lift, leaning against the cool wall with a sigh as he pressed his floor number. A ‘ding’ alerted him to the lift’s arrival and he somehow managed to stumble his way to his front door without tripping over any of his neighbor’s shoes. Just as he opened the door, he noticed something was wrong.

The lights were off.

No, that wasn’t the thing that was wrong. It was common for him to come back to a dark apartment now that Jinyoung spends most of his time camping out in the labs, especially with the deadline of one of his term papers coming up.

The shoe rack was missing. Or more accurately, Jinyoung’s shoes were missing from the shoe rack. Both of them were shoe addicts and had a habit of collecting multiple pairs of shoes, which often ended up in their doorway being cluttered.

But their doorway was now clear. Jaebum would be able to walk around without tripping over anything.

With a foreboding feeling, he dropped his bag on the couch and rushed to the bedroom.

No Jinyoung.

Not like he was expecting to see him there though.

What he was not expecting to see was to see Jinyoung’s side of the room empty. He flung open the closet and stared at it.

And stared some more.

There was no saying how long he stood there in that position, eyes never leaving the closet.

The right side of the closet was _empty_.

Jinyoung’s clothes were all _gone_.

There was no presence of his boyfriend in the house anywhere.

 _Gone_.

Without a trace.

A muffled bang from his neighbor’s apartment woke him up from his trance. Jaebum turned on his heels and exited the room, grabbing his bag on the way out as he headed to the dance studio.

He had a dance competition coming two days later. Of course, he had to practice. They were going to win, after all.

 

It was a miracle that he didn’t tear anything that night.

 

Maybe there was a reason why high school sweethearts only existed in dramas and stories. In those sort of fairytales you have once dreamed of having or your parents would read to you at bedtime.

Because if the concept of high school sweethearts did exist in reality, it certainly didn’t in Jaebum’s world.

That being said, he had to revisit his entire perception of the world being fair.

 

Life wasn’t fair because Jinyoung still had his heart.

And Jaebum didn’t want it back.

**Author's Note:**

> IDK what type of formatting this was. *runs away*  
> Betaed - 10/05/2017


End file.
